Tuesday, September 18, 2012

It's always a kick to discover what other people say about your kind of people behind your back. My best find was a student conversation overheard at my campus. "The professor was wearing a tee shirt," said the first student, "a striped one." The other said, "We're paying to be here: you don't have to stand for that."

So now we know what Romney and the Republican donors who had the bucks to kick in for a $50,000 a plate Republican fundraiser, think of the rest of us--or at least 47% of us. They believe that we're chronic whiners who imagine ourselves victims and are unwilling to "take personal responsibility and care for...[our] lives."

The remarkable thing about Romney's pitch, and the audience at which it was directed, is that in spite of being educated and presumably competent, they were so utter lacking in imagination. That is a characteristic of primitive people--people in "traditional" societies and the lower classes. They just don't get counterfacuals. Ask a bigoted redneck or working class white ethnic how he would feel about things if he were black and the response is invariably, "But I'm not black." Ask it again, "But what if..." and the answer will be the same. They're not capable of achieving the level of abstract thought that makes it possible to understand counterfactuals--including the Golden Rule. They just don't have the imagination. But maybe that's because they can't afford imagination: they're too busy scrounging and fighting for survival.

Uneducated people behave themselves--when they do--because they're afraid of punishment--in this world or the next. Apart from that, they can't imagine any reason not to lie, cheat and steal or, if they're young men, rape and pillage. And that is why the lower classes are so keen on get-tough policies and religion: they simply can't imagine why anyone would behave themselves if it weren't for fear of punishment, in this world or the next.

Remarkably Romney and his supporters--rich, educated people who have the time and leisure to reflect--are just as unimaginative. They can't seem to imagine what it would be like if their circumstances were, though no fault of their own, different--if they'd been born dirt poor, or black, or on the opposite side of the southern border, or in any of a number of circumstances that would have put them at a serious disadvantage. And they can't or won't understand the extent to which circumstances beyond their control including pure dumb luck were responsible for their privilege.

I'm happy--in fact, delighted, with the life I live. I'm not a victim--indeed I'm vastly privileged--and I'm not whining. I've got a much better life than I ever dreamed I'd have. All I've ever wanted in life was to avoid boredom, and in particular, to do a work that was challenging and interesting. I got that. But it was a matter of pure dumb luck--because my family had money, because I lucked out in getting an academic job, because, most fundamentally, I won the genetic lottery and turned out to be smart. But all this is dumb luck. I didn't make it. It is simply a matter of pure dumb luck that I'm a professor and not a Walmart cashier, or a freeway entrance beggar, or a citizen of the Global South living in extreme poverty, or the child of such a citizen, dying of malnutrition in early childhood.

Romney is now pushing the self-serving self-deceiving idea "we made it." We didn't. We got it--from the government, from biology, from fate, from a variety of circumstances beyond our control. And if we have the ability to understand counterfactuals we should recognize that if our circumstances had been different we'd be members of the 47% that Romney has dismissed as irresponsible whiners. If my fate had been different, if I hadn't been able to go to college, I would have gone on welfare. I'm not interested in promoting socialist policies for the sake of the lower classes, whom I detest, but for my sake--because I could have been in their position. I want to see these policies in place because I want to live in a world where no one has their back against the wall with no room to maneuver, because I escaped a life that I would have found intolerable by the skin of my teeth. I don't care about the poor--I care about myself and people like me, people who are a hair's breadth away from being trapped in an intolerable situation.

I don't have any problem supporting the idle poor--because if I were in their situation I wouldn't want to be forced to do work. I don't begrudge them their idleness because it is exactly what I'd choose if I were in their position--one of those counterfactuals. I'm still amazed though at Romney and his followers. Can't they imagine the hell in which the 47% live--choosing between poverty and agonizing work, and most often ending up with both? Can't they imagine what work is like for most of us? In the morning, it's like you dive into deep water and see how long you can hold your breath--how long you can do the job before you start going mad, crying, cracking up. That's the way it was for me when I did "real work"--by 10:30 every day I was crying. Yes, I'm a stinking spoiled brat. Yes, most people cope. But I don't want them to have to cope--I don't want them to do what I myself couldn't do. I want them to have the good life that I have because it's a matter of pure dumb luck that I do and they don't. Why is this so hard to understand?

Friday, September 14, 2012

Let's get out with signs and tell the world, and the Muslim world in particular, that we Americans do not support the lunatic Islamophobia of "Pastor" Terry Jones and whoever concocted the offensive film that set off this outrage.

Sorry Muslim people. That film is not the behavior of Christians, or Jews, or Americans of any religion or no religion. It was the work of detestable trash whom we repudiate. This is not who we are. The people of Libya have repudiated the murder of our ambassador and other Americans and throughout the Islamic world people of good will have come out to tell us that they reject groups that perpetrate this violence. And for our part we should let them, and everyone else, know that we reject the bigotry of the minority of Americans who insult Islam and promote hate.

How about 2 pm Sunday in front of the San Diego Civic Center for you who are local--with signs, like the one in the picture to get the message across that Koran-burning Terry Jones does not speak for us? And if you are not local, how about getting something going in your area.

OK, it probably won't work. I'm not an activist or an organizer. But on the off chance that some one who reads this, one of my Facebook friends or their friends of friends, is an activist and organizer, please consider this project.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

I've signed up for a Saturday workshop at school on "core curriculum"
and, having just read the "materials" for this monstrosity I'm probably
going to drop out--even though they give us $100 and a free lunch for
going. The stuff is sickening--inflated, vacuous, pious bullshit.

So
what do I think about "core"? I prefer "general ed" of course because
it isn't core or central to the mission of a university, which is
vocational training for professional occupations. General ed courses are
a wonderful luxury. However one of the items I read did ask us to
reflect and get clear about what we thought the role of core/GE was. So I
did, and here it is:

(1) Brain-Candy. The primary role
of GE is to stock students heads with amusements and give them the
skills for a lifetime of intellectual entertainment. It takes work to be
entertained by art, literature, science and all the good stuff of
culture but it pays off magnificently. Uneducated people simply can't
enjoy themselves as consistently or intensely as we can if we've learned
to understand and appreciate high culture, to understand
things that are difficult and intricate. Anna Karenina, the Bach B
Minor Mass and San Vitale just pack a much, much bigger hedonic punch
than any pop cultural crap, but to get the thrill you have to do some
work.

(2) Intellectual Jewelery. We want to adorn
ourselves, turn our lives into works of art by acquiring beautiful
things--by decorating our houses, having fine furniture, and decorating
ourselves with skills and knowledge. We decorate ourselves by learning
to play musical instruments and to draw, by reading works in the
evolving "canon," by learning about history and politics. The aim is to
become what used to be called "cultivated" or "cultured." It's
narcissism and snobbery--and I'm all for it.

Of course
this won't fly because, incredibly, even though we are vastly wealthy
most Americans seem convinced that we're on the edge of economic
disaster and have to engage in endless belt-tightening. We're told we
can't afford universal health care, can't afford to pay public school
teachers decent wages, can't afford decent working conditions or shorter
hours. And of course we can't afford hedonistic, narcissistic luxuries
like a liberal education. So we have to sell it as something edifying,
religious, and "core" to social well-being.

If that's so I suppose colleagues who run projects like core
curriculum revision are doing their job, persuading the general public
that there should be courses other than business and engineering, that
people like me, who don't do anything useful or of practical import
should be employed. So these noises, I suppose, have to be made--and in
order to make them credibly, they have to be made by true believers.
Cynical actors fail because acting is hard.

But I'm a
person of little faith and a poor actor. So I think I can do without the
$100 and free lunch: time for strategic withdrawal.

Saturday, September 01, 2012

Good Lord, what is this nonsense about evolution? When I was a little kid, in the wake of Sputnik, all Americans wanted to promote Science, and there was no nonsense about "Creationism." There were TV shows about life emerging from the primordial soup and that's what we learnt in biology. No one doubted it.

In high school we had an assembly at which a biologist who was a college professor spoke to us about evolution. I remember it well: he was young, very good looking, and the first man I'd ever seen in person who had a beard. I was impressed.

So what happened? As a child I heard that in the Olden Days there were people who objected to evolution, and that it all blew up during the Scopes Monkey Trial. But that was long ago and far away--and now the theory of evolution was established as solid fact, and everyone accepted it. What happened???

Were there people around when I was growing up who were Creationists? I think not. I think there were a great many people who simply never thought about the origin of species. They were mostly poor, uneducated people who had enough problems dealing with their own lives and didn't worry about such things. In was only during the late 70's with the emergence of the religious right that demagogues got these people riled up and recruited them.